1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a waste treatment process, and more particularly to a process for reducing an existing landfill, so as to extend the life of the existing landfill while being cost effective.
2. Description of Related Arts
Landfill space for municipal solid waste is rapidly being consumed. To address this concern, some municipalities have resorted to incinerating their garbage in lieu of depositing their garbage into landfills. However, using incinerators is problematic because they are expensive to run. Especially in Asian countries, such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, the high moisture content in solid waste impedes the incinerators from running at maximum efficiency because the incinerators must expend extra energy in order to evaporate off the moisture in the waste. Another major disadvantage in using incinerators is that incinerators release much pollution into the atmosphere.
A second proposed solution is to reduce the amount of garbage deposited into landfills by enacting recycling programs where individuals presort recyclable material from their garbage. However, recycling programs are often ineffectual in reducing the amount of garbage because many individuals in actuality do not separate recyclable material from their garbage. Furthermore, by the nature of many business establishments and public trashcans, the separation of recyclable material from the garbage before the garbage is collected is impracticable. As a consequence, much recyclable material is not separated from the garbage before it is collected.
A third proposed solution is to remove recyclable material after the garbage has been collected. This proposal is ineffective because individuals and businesses often deposit their garbage into plastic bags. The plastic bags impede efforts to separate recyclable material from the garbage because the garbage is trapped inside the plastic bags. Therefore, much recyclable material is deposited in landfills taking up valuable landfill space. Moreover, the material is not recycled and does not conserve our valuable natural resources.
A problem to all of the proposals is that none address landfills, which are already filled up with garbage. For example, in Taiwan, there are at least fifty five waste disposal area in river beds must be cleaned out and seventy eight full or over filled landfill yards must be processed to extend their service lives.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a comprehensive process for reducing an existing landfill which extends the life of the existing landfill while being cost effective by removing valuable resources from the solid waste that is deposited in the existing landfill.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a process for reducing an existing landfill, which solves the problem of garbage trapped inside plastic bags by removing the plastic bags from the solid waste through specific processing steps. Because the plastic bags are removed from the solid waste, recyclable material can be accessed. Therefore, the solid waste not need have been presorted for recyclable material.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a process for reducing an existing landfill, which lowers the cost of incineration and the amount of pollution released. By removing recyclable material, decomposable material, and excess water from the solid waste, the incinerators have less quantity of matter to burn and thus expend less energy to burn up the solid waste. Furthermore, because these materials are removed from the solid waste before incineration, less pollution is released into the atmosphere. The present process used in conjunction with incineration results in waste that is nearly 100% processed and requires very little landfill space.
Another advantage of the present process is that all the equipment used in the present process can be driven or trailored to the existing disposal area or landfill yard, can be set up on site, and can be operated on any kind of ground condition. Since the equipment does not take up much space and is mobile, the equipment can be set up quickly and cheaply in comparison which traditional processes for the treatment of municipal solid waste.